cartography

I've been thinking about the way we should think about the scriptures, and the idea that keeps coming up is cartography--old school map-making. Let me break it down. (this may be a longer post than usual)

Maps are made by explorers. Maps are made for explorers. At least they used to be, so let's think about that time and think about map-making in that way.

Maps were made by explorers as they interacted with the territory. They would identify some direction and draw out a rough representation of the territory as they could understand it. Looking at some of the maps, they look pretty silly, but they are fairly accurate. Back then, we can say, they were adequately accurate.

Now, as these explorers continued to interact with the territory using their previous maps, they refined their reports on territory--not that they were wrong before, just fuzzy or a bit out of proportion. in addition, there was new territory being discovered, and that new territory had to be mapped now, too.

As these explorers passed on their maps to later explorers, the collection of these explorers' reports on territory grew. What emerged was a consistent, but progressively better understanding of the territory.

What if scripture is like a collection of maps made by explorers who were reporting on their interaction with territory? Of course, in the case of the scriptures, the Territory is revealing itself, but the analogy holds--it is the testimony of 'explorers' for 'explorers.'

Four other thoughts that are related and still germinating:
1) Map is not Territory. One of my seminary profs (Dr. Castelein) reminded us that "map is not territory." He wasn't talking about this, but the phrase keeps ringing in my head as I think about scripture as cartography.

2) We too are in the business of exploring and map-making. I would not go so far as to say that we can add to the scriptures in the sense of scriptures-as-closed-canon, but perhaps we should see our lives as a continuation of that long line of God-explorers, God-listeners, God-watchers, God-reporters. This all starts sounding very much like the New Testament language of witness to me.

3) We should expect any 'maps' we draw up to be consistent with previous 'maps.' This is not to say that they will be identical--we should, I think, expect progression--but we will not start drawing up imaginary maps. We are dealing with the same territory.

4) There is no 'satellite mapping system.' We cannot 'draw up maps from outer space'--there is no cartography apart from interaction with Territory.